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THE SOUL'S PROGRESS 

AND OTHER POEMS 



THE 

SOUL'S PROGRESS 

And Other Poems 



BY 

LOUIS V. LEDOUX 

AUTHOR OF "SONGS FROM THE SILENT LAND" 



JOHN LANE COMPANY 
NEW YORK • • MCMVI 



Copyright 

1906 

By John Lane Company 

All rights reserved 



LIBRARY Of CONQRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 81 1906 

Q Cepyrlefit Er.lry 
CLASS ct XXc, No. 
COPY B. 






THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



? To 

r 



GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Prologue 9 

The Soul's Progress: 

Preface ..., ••• 17 

Part I 

Boyhood 25 

Youth 26 

The Coming of Doubt ..,-.,, 28 

The Death of Youth 32 

In Exile 35 

The Higher Optimism . . , . , . , 39 

Part II 

The Course 47 

Epilogue 64 



6 CONTENTS 

Other Poems : 

Page 

To (As bards of eld — ) 67 

To Phyllis 6S 

The Hill of Pines 70 

Dirge for Love 72 

Loneliness 74 

Love's Homing 77 

The Topiarist 78 

Love's Impotence 79 

Life 80 

The Better Part 82 

The Stranger 84 

The Last Symphony 87 



PROLOGUE 



PROLOGUE 

TO GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 

The quest of Beauty through illusion's world, 

And Love, of Beauty born, that homing died, — 

Familiar themes — with youthful voice I sing; 

Not emulous in aught of singers dead, 

Nor yet of him whose music rises now 

In strains immortal as the soul of song. 

In humbleness before the voiceful dead 

I stand, and here of him who, singing, lives, 

I claim the privilege of discipleship. 

Not mine the genius surging full at flood, 
In foaming waves that Fre^om's passion bear, 
To break in music on a Nation's heart. 
Till patriot beacons blaze from coast to coast ; 
Nor mine the strength to reach that mountain 
crest 



lo PROLOGUE 

Which looks, prophetic, toward the dawning age, 
And in the paling of night's weakest star, 
And in the first faint herald of the east 
Hails day, that soon the valleys, wrapped in mist 
And dreaming not of any light to come, 
Shall wake from life potential, slumber bound, 
To life that builds the master-work of God. 
Nor yet of these great gifts the third is mine : 
To look serenely up the human stream 
With vision backward turned and thoughtful eyes, 
That gazing steadfast toward its limpid source, 
Now lost to sight beyond the haze of years, 
Can mark a constant progress in its flow, 
By swirl and eddy, round opposed rocks. 
Till sweeping past that crumbling ledge of time 
To which we cling, it moves with hidden course, 
Toward cloud-hung coasts and seas whose 

freighted breath 
Far inland wafting, wakes, as fragrance found 
In love-saved flowers, after love has died, 
A sense of incompleteness, lack, or loss. 
Not such my theme ! My song is from a heart 
That tracking orbed Beauty through the world 
With ardor undismayed, self-consecrate 



PROLOGUE II 

To follow where the quest may lead, though 

strange 
And perilous the pathway be, but finds 
Illusive gleams, ineffable desire. 

Surely I stood erect, ere birth had bound 
My broken being to the wheel of change, 
And gazed, clear-eyed, on Beauty absolute ; 
For unappeased yearnings haunt my mind — 
Like Love's remembrance of a vanished face. 
And shadowy presences about me move 
Which brand me, lips and brow, with wands of fire 
That bearing Beauty's signet through the world 
I no oblivion find, nor any peace. 
Surely I stood erect and met her gaze ; 
Her voice I heard, — the speech was music's self. 
Ah then I recked not that a time would come. 
When, creeping prostrate through the dust of Hfe, 
Back from the strange deformities of sense, 
My soul, unwinged, would bfeathe petition vain 
To hear the distant passing of her feet, 
To kneel far-off and gaze with doubtful eyes 
On vague suggestions of her loveliness; 
Yet now I wander like an erring child 



12 PROLOGUE 

That follows firefly gleams afar from home, 
Wayworn and hesitant, with circling steps. 

And this the lot of Beauty's chosen priests : 
In cloistral twilight redolent of prayer, 
To feel the poisoned arrow burning deep, 
Forevermore, within the wound she gives ; 
To question earth and ocean, air and life, 
For aught of balm to ease the ancient pain ; 
To worship whatsoe'er partakes of her, — 
Now half revealed in a maiden's eyes. 
Now glimpsed in moonlight paling toward the 

day, 
Now heard in cataract or thunder crash. 
But shadows these : her presence still they miss. 
A light revolving on the shores of dream. 
An instant seen and then a night-time gone — 
On hidden shores, whose doubtful port is death, 
So Beauty seems ; and they the mariners 
Who tossing evermore on tideless seas, 
Hand-bound and impotent, with straining eyes, 
But drink a further madness from the sight. 
As joy that fades ere yet surprise be dead 
So Beauty fades, or as, on quiet waves, 



PROLOGUE 13 

Across the silver highway of the moon, 

A cloud-built island passes — swift as dream — 

Her shadow passes by. Unsatisfied 

With human joys or touch of human hands, 

They follow her they love throughout the world. 

But clasp, like Pan of eld, at last a reed. 

And doubts arise, but clear the answer rings : 

Devoid of visioned Beauty what were life? 

Again I turn to him whose surer song 
Far generations yet unborn shall heed ; 
For now, with toiling steps, I onward climb 
Toward where, far up amid the glaciers lone. 
His music blooms — the edelweiss of song, 
The spirit's chant of passion's purity. 
To him I turn, my master, poet, friend, 
And beg of him this boon of long desire — 
To lay my hillside blossoms at his feet. 



THE SOUL'S PROGRESS 



PREFACE 

One of the most important phases of the 
soul's progress toward a realization of itself 
has seemed to me to be its passage from the 
thoughtless optimism of youth, through the val- 
ley of the shadow, to that higher optimism 
which, having seen and triumphed over the 
evils of life, differs from its earlier form about 
as does virtue from innocence. 

The intensity with which one feels any of the 
later gradations in this sequence is directly pro- 
portionate to the vividness of the earlier experi- 
ences ; to some, about whom " the light that 
never was on sea or land " has shone with un- 
usual clearness, the descent into the darkness 
of doubt — sudden as it usually is — is doubly 
bitter. 



1 8 PREFACE 

The boy accepts Beauty ^ passively, as a mat- 
ter of course, and assumes, except in the case 
of one nurtured in sorrow, that pillars of cloud 
and of fire will always be present to guide him 
toward that promised land which, he thinks, can- 
not after all be so much fairer than the world 
wherein he dwells. Then the youth, with the 
fervor of spring in his heart and the freshness 
of morning in his eyes, feels the passion of 
Beauty, and, if he be especially susceptible to 
Nature's charm, he sees her loveliness as the 
complement of the glory of life, and sings in 
word or action his hymn of joy. Later, in the 
midst of his ecstasy, he feels the stealthy ap- 
proach of doubt, which comes to him disguised 
alluringly as broader knowledge or manhood's 
experience, and gains access either through 
contact with the positive evils of life or in the 

*• Here let it be clearly understood that in the following 
pages the word Beauty is not generally used in its ordinary 
sense of "that which is pleasing to the eye," but is usually 
given that philosophic meaning in which Beauty, Goodness, 
and Truth are the same in essence. Beauty in this sense, and 
disregarding the Platonic conception of Absolute Beauty, 
might perhaps be defined as that which is present of the 
infinite in the finite. 



PREFACE 19 

thoughts of those who have learned in the 
school of suffering to feel 

" the heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world." 

The " white radiance" of noon, that grew from 
the delicate hopefulness of dawn, sinks suddenly 
into a tropic twilight, and the soul is left '* lone- 
wandering through the night," filled with the 
bitterness of disillusion, sorrowing for lost ideals 
and for that perfect faith in the omnipresence of 
Beauty which, in their passing, take with them 
youth with its untried confidence in life. But 
the night has its stars, and happy is he who, see- 
ing them, feels their unalterable calm and gains 
an appreciation of life's fundamental loveliness. 

There is a distinct difference between purely 
intellectual conceptions and those that are col- 
oured by feeling; for instance, the idea of Deity, 
arrived at by the reasoning faculty of the mind 
alone, is apt to be much less anthropomorphic 
than the conception of God into which an 
emotional element enters. While complete dif- 
ferentiation of the two is, of course, impossible, 



20 PREFACE 

the attempt has yet been made to distinguish, 
in a way, between them. 

The progress of the soul through the realm 
of emotion is here represented (Part I) in a 
series of lyrics, which, disregarding all else, 
present merely the moods characteristic of par- 
ticular periods. It may possibly be as well to 
state that there were considerable intervals be- 
tween the times of writing the various lyrics, 
and that they were composed without any reali- 
zation that they would form a sequence. The 
second part is, on the other hand, a conscious 
attempt to trace, with continuity and with regard 
for cause and effect, the intellectual growth of 
the soul from the mental attitude of boyhood to 
its higher optimism. 

It is my conviction that any spiritual experi- 
ence, such as that herein portrayed, while true in 
all its details to one alone, will yet, through the 
general kinship of humanity, be partially true 
to all ; and, in the belief that art loses value in 
whatever measure it deviates from complete sin- 
cerity, I have tried to describe the experiences 
as accurately as possible, introducing only such 



PREFACE 21 

slight alterations as are essential to all artistic 
representation. 

English poetry is full of allusions to the 
vision and its passing, and there are many ref- 
erences to the soul's return from the winter of 
its discontent to a hngering Indian summer 
of mellower youthfulness. Some, however, have 
never passed beyond the second stage ; they 
have become bewildered in cloud-filled valleys 
and have seen, only in rare and sunnier mo- 
ments, the tranquil peaks for which they ever 
look longingly, but whose summits they may 
never attain. 

Yet the experiences of life come to each one 
of us afresh, as unaging dawn comes to each 
new day ; and so I too have attempted to ex- 
press the moods and the thoughts of the soul 
in its progress. 

LOUIS V. LEDOUX. 

" Skyrie " > 

October 22, 1906. 



THE SOUL'S PROGRESS 
PART I 



BOYHOOD 

" The dream I dreamed, hut waking could not live " 

I STAND on the shore of a stormless sea, 
With Hope's young eyes in wonder wide, 
And watch the sun-swept ripples ghde 

From dreaming haze of eternity. 

The ocean is kind, for the wavelets play 
With smile and shimmer about my feet, 
And scatter benediction sweet 

In drops of silent-falHng spray. 

The wind is still ; the deep is calm ; 

My soul looks down through the visioned 
years 

And finds no presage of grief or tears, 
For the sea will cradle my bark from harm. 



26 YOUTH 



YOUTH 

*' God must be glad one loves His world so much 

I SING the joy of the wind-swept woods, 

The joy of the sunlit sky, 
The joy of the solemn solitudes 

Where the stars burn clear on high ; 

For life is a joyous" song of Love, 

Of Beauty and Delight, 
And human souls in cadence move 

With the hymn of noon and night. 

I sing with the winds, the stars and sun, 

As the world rolls on its way, 
A song of cosmic joy, begun 

At the birth of night and day ; 



YOUTH 27 

For life is a perfect symphony 
With God and His world in tune, 

And I feel the vibrant harmony 
Of the pulsing days of June. 



28 THE COMING OF DOUBT 



THE COMING OF DOUBT 

*' Norns, is the heart of a boy CocCs lie ? " 

Alone with Nature on a joyous day, 

We wandered through the forest, loving all 

The wondrous beauty of the youthful May, 
And gloried in the Spring. We heard the 
call 

Of birds that sang their rippling notes of love, 

Full-throated, chanting praise to God above 

We saw the orchids — yellow, red, and white — 
Agleam in purple shade of dusky pines; 

And ferns that sway in woven forest light, 

Cradled in vales where languorous day re- 
clines ; 

While 'gainst the grey of Hchened cliffs on high. 

The laurel showed, as clouds in dawn's dim sky. 



THE COMING OF DOUBT 29 

The sense of Beauty thrilled us, till we saw 
Naught but effulgent, rapturous Beauty; 
heard 

And felt but Beauty only. All the law 

Of life was summed in Beauty. Like a bird 

The world sang paeans rich with pure dehght, 

And gave no presage of the coming night. 

We spoke of Beauty — how it wrapped us 
round, — 

Of how the world was fair, and life was sweet ; 
How God was love ; and every softest sound 

A note in Nature's harmony complete. 
And then a joyous bird began to sing, 
That life was one transcendent, pulsing Spring. 

When sunlight slanted from the western glow, 
The ecstasy of Nature hushed our hearts 

To voiceless adoration : soon the slow, 

Soft twilight shadows lengthened, and the 
darts 



30 THE COMING OF DOUBT 

Of darkness rustled through the drowsy trees, 
And spirit voices stole along the breeze. 

Then falt'ringly our thought was framed in 
speech, 

And all the hopes and all the dreams of youth 
Were voiced in low yet fervent words ; for each 

Was starting on the long life-search for truth, 
And each had seen a vision in the way. 
And each was young as eager-hearted May. 

But softly down the wind a whisper stole. 
And woke remembrance of the warning cry 

Of those who knew this Springtime of the soul. 
Yet found it sadly wane and pass and die. 

They saw the light of Beauty slowly fail, 

Enwrapped in shrouding darkness — veil on 
veil. 

I cried : ** They say this glory soon must fade, 
For Life will seize us with relentless hand 



THE COMING OF DOUBT 31 

And screen the vivid light with folding shade ; 

That all the realm of Beauty is a land 
Of dreams and visions doomed to pass away, 
And not God's prophecy of endless day." 

But through the twilight came her answer clear : 
" It cannot be that this is all a dream ! 

It is too wonderful, and God is here. 

Yet should it prove a transient, fading gleam 

Before the dark, and hope be found a lie, 

I pray that dreaming ever, we may die ! " 

So, musing, passed we through the forest dim. 
While evening spread the quiet glades with 
dew. 
And saw, far up the East, a lustrous rim 

Of gold upon a mountain top, and knew 
A Beauty purer far than sunlit May, 
And murmured : " Night may fairer prove than 
day ! " 



32 THE DEATH OF YOUTH 



THE DEATH OF YOUTH 

" / wake from day-dreams to this real night " 

From sweet illusion waked in sudden night, 

I saw Life's evil throng, 
No longer masked in semblance of delight; — 

Hypocrisy and wrong, 
With all their loathsome kin, — and Youth, that 

clung 
To young ideals, to bitter words was stung : 

" Has Life naught else but these repulsive 
shapes, 

So seeming fair without. 
So foul and false within ? What soul escapes, 

Surrounded by such rout, 



THE DEATH OF YOUTH 33 

From loss of Love and Gladness, Hope and 

Youth? 
Is Life but disillusion? evil, truth?" 

Then Youth grew faint among the ghastly 
forms, 

Which mocking, pressed more near, 
And cried : ** Behold in us the naked norms 

Of Life ; behold and fear. 
For nevermore shall Beauty's swift surprise 
Transform the world before thy startled eyes." 

** The Law of Life," they shrieked, ** is bitter 
doom; 
And man must bear its yoke." 
But Hope that sank through solitudes of gloom, 

In lingering anguish ^poke : 
" I should not yet deny my early dream. 
Would one sure Hght amid Life's darkness 
gleam." 



34 THE DEATH OF YOUTH 

A pause; and Hope, from ebb resurging^ 
strove 
To see in Life some light; 
But still no single ray of Beauty clove 

The universal night. 
In all the world I saw but strife and pride, 
With shams of faith; and Youth, despairing, 
died. 



IN EXILE 35 



IN EXILE 

" If this were life, thou wouldst not hear me crying " 

An exile in the city pent, 

To me a glimpse of heaven is sent; — 

A dash of blue, a drifting cloud ; — 

And while around me, clamouring loud, 

Is restless strife of careworn men, 

I steal away in dreams, and then 

I hear the robins carolling, 

Where maple, oak, and chestnut swing 

Their branches with the boisterous sweep 

Of boyish winds that down the steep 

Declivities of mountains leap. 

Unheedful of the city's rocfr, 

I Hve the life I hved of yore, 

In which the mind, with Heaven content, 

Found Heaven's every beauty blent 



36 IN EXILE 

Within itself, till song of breeze, 

The flowers' sweetness, fields, and trees 

Established one complete control, 

In harmony of part with whole, 

Throughout the young harmonious soul. 

Alone I pace the crowded street 

And watch the thousands that I meet, 

Till on me comes a tide of pity 

For all the anguish of the city, 

That surges up to God, unspoken. 

From hearts whose trust in Him is broken, 

Yet dumbly seek some certain token. 

To show He heeds their silent pain. 

The thousands pass and come again ; 

Each hasteful, restless, on they race, 

And graven deep on every face 

By hard, remorseless, constant strife, 

The condemnation of the life 

Is writ. 



IN EXILE 37 

How long, O Lord, how long 
Wilt thou permit the perfect song 
Of life that should be, thus to wail 
Through minor tones, and dying, fail 
In discord utterly? How long, 
O Lord, how long must grief and wrong 
Compel a thoughtful worker here, 
Who feels the city's burthen near 
His own heart ache, to sink away 
Within himself, lest pity's sway 
Too strong should prove, and drag its prey 
Afar from possibility 
Of peace ? Yet this alone to me 
Brings restful calm ; for when I yearn 
Too ardently to soothe the stern 
Realities of pain that burn 
The helpless hearts of men, I turn 
The sad thought inward, sinking deep 
From dream to dream, till pity sleep 
And calm be found. 



38 IN EXILE 

A glint of blue 
Betw^een the house-tops, all the view 
Of ample Heaven I need. A cloud 
That shades the glaring street ; the crowd 
Is all forgot ; the din is hushed ; 
The restless eyes that by me rushed 
Haste on unseen. Ah, could I show 
To others that sweet path I go 
To where — through memory's aid — I lie 
And watch the tranquil, spacious sky, 
In half unconscious bliss of mere 
Existence ! Swallows dart and veer 
In zigzag flight, and fragrant grass 
Waves round me, while slow shadows pass 
From flower to flower, till twilight's charm 
Brings cool beneficence of calm. 



THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 39 



THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 

** Beauty abides^ nor suffers mortal change" 

High on a mountain where the rugged trees 
Clung sturdily, I heard the crooning breeze 
Whisper its silver-sounding slumber song 
Among the cliffs, and o'er the valleys long, 
Where drowsy leaves were nodding dreamy- 
wise. 
I saw, far up the deep, eternal skies. 
The summer clouds which slumbrous steal 

athwart 
The sun, till ruffian, clamorous winds distort 
Their shape, and make them fade and pass — 

like men. ^ 

The vision thrilled me ; for my soul till then 
Had been throughout a stretch of darkened dayS; 
Bound in the thralling bondage of the ways 



40 THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 

Of cities, where the clanging notes of strife, 
Discordant, voice our fever-fitful life. 
Into my soul the glowing Beauty crept. 
And stirred my senses which so long had slept, 
Callous and cold, as winter still and hoary, — 
Till now the fair transcendent summer's glory 
Enwrapped my being like a lustral fire, 
And tuned me to such music as the choir 
Of clear-eyed angels chant in chorus there, 
Where perfect harmony is perfect prayer. 
And now my spirit's lyre, from silence long, 
By God's own fingers waked to sudden song. 
Breathed tremulous, through every eager string 
The very melodies the seraphs sing. 
I felt the love of God around me flow, — 
Changeless, effulgent, through me burn and 

glow. 
And seemed to rise above the things of earth. 
Pure as the moonbeams at the dawn's pale birth. 
Before my eyes, in vision were unrolled 



THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 41 

The scrolls of all the ages myriad-fold ; 

The gates of Life and Death were opened 

wide, 
That I might see the surging human tide, 
Instinct with hopes of Heaven and dread of 

Hell, 
Which, as its crested billows, breaking, fell, 
Cast whirling up the crags of stolid Fate 
The scattered surf of mortal love and hate. 
Yet sadness there was none, for on my thought 
Of all the ways that human souls are bought 
For gold or dross or shadows of a dream. 
There burst, like moonlight on a darkling 

stream. 
The glow of Beauty, poised with sheltering 

wings. 
Caressingly above the world which sings 
Its hymn of wondrous rapture, while the spheres, 
Through seons of the numberless long years, 
Keep time and tune in magical mute song. 



42 THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 

The moving spell of Beauty grew more strong ; 
While still throughout my quivering being 

wound 
The sense of summer's blended light and 

sound. 
Like fleeting mist before unchanging hills, 
I saw the universal gloom that fills 
Our usual sight; within, beyond, above 
Its transitory cloud rose steadfast Love. 

In joyous vision, Life I saw complete, — 

A unity, whose differing parts, replete 

With hidden usage, build the perfect whole, 

That waits unseen within the dormant soul. 

For like a mighty symphony is Life, 

Whence many voices rise that seem at strife ; — 

We play with unskilled hands our single part ; 

We hear the happy melodies that start 

In beauty, cease unsung, while eager themes 

In discord die. No plan or form there seems. 



THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 43 

For heeding not the rest we play, each one 

Alone ; and ere we have with toil begun 

To know the whole, we die. Yet God who 

wrote 
The score, can hear how every separate note 
Fulfils an end ; how themes that break in pain 
Are caught by other instruments, and gain 
At last completion, blending, ere they cease, 
In harmony of woven chords of peace. 

And then the spell of Beauty, working still. 
Transformed my every sense, my thought, my 

will, 
To ecstasy. I knew no other life 
But that of soul, and all the brutal strife. 
The grief, the pain, seemed dim and far away. 
Entranced I stood until the^yric day 
Drew down toward tranquil twilight One clear 

star, 
Alone 'mid seas of orange fervour, far 



44 THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 

Within the West was gleaming ; golden bright 
It shone above the purple hills ; then light 
Burst forth from clouds that opening — fold on 

fold — 
Disclosed unfathomed depths of burning gold ; 
And from their central heart came darting rays, 
Which spread diffused in trembling yellow haze 
Among the cHffs ; in undulating lines 
They came, and crowned the peaks and cresting 

pines 
With aureoles. 

At length the western flame 
Grew pale, and floating up the mountain came 
The soft, enfolding shadows. Evening's breeze 
Caressed the valley's gently waving trees; 
The birds were rocked to sleep, then, one by one, 
The timid stars peeped out, and day was done. 



PART II 



THE COURSE 

From exile in the glooms of thought returned, 
I sing the progress of the soul — through sweet, 
Unclouded meadows ever warm with sun, 
Down shadow-haunted marshes dim with mist, 
To open uplands where the thrushes call ; 
Where darkness only comes to grow more fair 
Than day, and, awed with subtler beauty, pass 
Through gently watching night to eager dawn. 
For not till then the. soul, with broader view. 
And calm initiate eyes that much have seen. 
Beholds life's quiet meads and deserts lone ; 
Its mountains, valleys, brooks, engulfing seas, 
With sense of due perspective, seeing how 
The parts combined create the landscape's full 
Completion. Youth, that lives secure in dreams, 
With Beauty void of change, unknowing pain, 



48 THE COURSE 

Uplifts to fair, imaginary forms 
The incomplete, disjointed parts of life. 
The soul creates the light wherein it moves ; 
And also gloom is born within the soul ; 
For Nature holds her Fate-appointed way, 
In one part steeped in Beauty, and in one 
A senseless monster, dealing senseless doom ; 
And we, who see the dark side or the bright. 
Deduce her fulness from our partial ken. 
So youth, which sees the brightness only, builds 
Therefrom its perfect world, expressing thus 
Itself Youth's mind, unclosing like a bud. 
Beneath the freshness of the morning dew, 
Lies open only to the cheerful sun ; 
The shades of night pass over it unseen, 
Unfelt, and thought of seldom. All the pain 
With which the flinching world is charged, it 

deems 
But mere illusion, born of men purblind. 
Who cannot see Hfe's Beauty, or have erred 



THE COURSE 49 

In following out the pathway clearly nrarked, 
That leads from bowers of early innocence 
To twilight rest embosomed safe in peace — 
The day accomplished and its journey done. 
And there seems perfect calm a little while, 
A tranquil watch beneath the kindly stars, 
And then new life, with other happiness ; 
For man in faith is nurtured, or he finds 
A trust in God and Life the dower of youth. 

How often, when in boyhood's days I stood 

Upon a mountain top among the pines. 

And saw the dreaming world below me 

spread, — 
The various green of cedar, oak, and birch; 
A lake of silver burnished by the sun; 
A homestead here and '"there that nestled 

close 

To kindly earth, — and saw the spacious sky. 

The tranquil depth in depth of blue, the clouds 

4 



50 THE COURSE 

With cooling showers laden, and perceived 

The solemn Beauty of God's handiwork, 

I knew a speechless reverence passing prayer, 

A bond of kinship with infinity ! 

And sometimes lesser things awoke this sense : 

An elm with branches like a fountain's curve 

Arrested in its fall ; a rainbow's sheen. 

That shimmered through a drifting smoke of 

spray, 
Brought swift communion with the Substance 

dim 
That they, its shadows real, made manifest 
As one within a darkened room may feel 
The silent presence of a friend unseen, 
So I intensely felt that God, though hid. 
Was close indeed. My trustful thought flowed 

on 
To Him — unformulate, for Him in me 
I found; and I myself — the sunlit world, 
The glory and the loveliness of life, 



THE COURSE 51 

Seemed parts of Him — the sum and source 
of all. 

The world of sense His pregnant symbol 

seemed ; 
A metaphor of Him whose vital breath 
Did permeate its every pore, who lived 
In Nature, veiled as life and love and light. 
That Man, with mortal eyes, might see the truth. 
Then through the symbol fair I passed toward 

Him 
In whom it had its being, lived and moved, 
Till all this firm, obtrusive universe 
Grew half unreal. I hved within the soul 
That lives in all things, and I saw naught else 
On life's horizon. God was far more near 
Than things of sense. With thought intent on 

Him, 
I moved through years, ignoring death and 

change. 



52 THE COURSE 

Around, within me, throbbing Beauty burned. 
The days and nights with rapture grew intense, 
And Hfe was one ecstatic hymn of joy, — 
A summer rich in comradeship with God. 

At length upon my eyes, with glory blind. 
Stole gradual shade. I saw the rule of pain ; — 
That all things kill to live, and slaying die ; — 
And yet I felt it not. Within my sight 
Was life's unrest, but I, aloof, looked on, 
And vaguely thought through lyric words to 

lift 
Men's stooping minds till they should know the 

white 
Sublimity that shone about me still. 

As one who sleeps, yet thinks himself awake, 
Will pass vv^ith sudden start from dream to 

truth. 
So they who dream that life is wholly good, 



THE COURSE 53 

By disillusion sharp are rudely waked, 

To face, off-guard, the stern reality. 

Like lightning striking swift from cloudless skies, 

The disillusion comes, transforming life 

To desolate immensities of waste. 

Where Good lies slain, and Evil rules alone. 

For with the death of youth the soul will swing 

From joy to gloom, and he whose joy was most, 

Will swing most far, with greatest impetus, 

Nor turn at once toward central equipoise. 

And thus it was with me. My voice, that oft 

Had sounded rapturous notes, grew harsih with 

pain; 
For God was lost, with faith and joyous youth. 
All nature seemed at heart impassive law. 
That down the ages moved without intent. 
Propelled by eyeless Chant:e, or eyeless Fate, 
Unsparing man, ignoring good and ill. 
I saw how men in urgent conflict strive, 
With greed ignoble and insatiate, 



54 THE COURSE 

Like soulless beasts, to seize another's prey, 
I saw deserving poor unjustly doomed ; 
The rich forgetting all but place and gold, 
With cant of charity and monstrous pride. 
I saw how maidens, dreaming girlish dreams, 
Whom chivalry itself scarce dared approach, 
Were given up, in all their purity. 
To men with eager eyes and ruthless hands. 
Who soiled the cherished body, stained the soul, 
And turned all trust in life — all faith and 

hope — 
To slow, consuming agony of hate. 
Heartsick with horror, then I turned away, 
Though here and there true love serenely 

burned, 
With hght reproachful in the general gloom. 

I saw religion oft defiled with sham, 
And churches thronged with thoughtless crowds, 
who came 



THE COURSE 55 

For custom and convention — shamming faith ; 
And some, of leading place, arch-hypocrites, 
Whose paid pretence of real approach to 

God, 
Through use of vacant forms but half believed, 
And wholly void of felt significance, 
Seemed worse than open scoffs — more blas- 
phemous. 
I saw that most whose early, cloudless faith 
Remained intact through grown experience, 
Were those who lived in simple thoughtless- 
ness — 
Accepting custom's teaching, questioning not, 
Nor feeling life's abysmal mystery. 

And then from all the realms of ruling pain — 
From Man and Nature -^ came a voice that 

cried : 
Could God have made this Malebolge of woe^ 
This gloomy pity this sink of shams and death ? 



56 THE COURSE 

Could God have given Man the power to yearn^ 
And tJien decreed his yearning ever vain ? 
In anguish rose the cosmic cry once more; 
From every nook where life could lurk, it 

rose: 
If God has made it ally what God is He 
Whose thought devised^ whose laws allow such 

life ? 
Then sick with grief and scorn, I vainly sought 
For calm forgetfulness, therein to rest. 

As youth, with mind intent on present joy, 
Has vague perception of existent woe, 
But sees it only as a passing cloud, 
That scarcely dims the brightness of the sun ; 
So, after darkness closes round the soul. 
When chill miasmic mists enfold its core. 
There comes a consciousness, obscurely felt. 
That past the shrouding gloom is light unseen. 
And thus it came to me : Life's bitterness 



THE COURSE 57 

Oppressed my every thought — was all I felt 
Or saw or knew ; and yet a sense profound 
Of other truth existed. 

All the while 
I pondered those who spoke of Life and God: 
The dreamer Plato, crowned with morning 

light; 
The Buddha, seeking mystic, deep repose ; 
The voice of self-found manhood — Emerson ; 
The surly Schopenhauer ; Haeckel too, 
Whose grovelling system robs the world of 

Soul ; 
And him who, wandering through " tremendous 

night," 
Saw Life as blank despair, with grie^ supreme.^ 
Then them I followed who^ panentheists, 
Taught God transcendent, immanent — the soul 
Of all — in all, and yet above — the whole ; 

1 James Thomson, the Younger. 



58 THE COURSE 

For theirs had been my own instinctive faith, 
That died, accounting not for present pain. 
But one alone I found whose doctrine seemed 
To reach the very kernel, pass the husk, — 
The singer Shelley, pure in heart, sincere ; 
Whose self surpassed its shadowing deed and 

song. 
And this the truth he spoke, with constant voice : 
Philosophy y religion^ thought must fail; 
We cannot solve Life s primal mystery ^ — 
Its cause ^ its sequence^ reason, end, or use ; 
Yet love exists as man's immortal hope. 
There lives a soul ijt all things that through 

lOVCy 

Works toward a far, millennial reign^ and 

builds. 
Eternity of joy, overcoming Fate, 

And once in later time, a rapture came — 
A trance of exaltation, unforeseen. 



THE COURSE 59 

I sat in silence through a starry night, 

And watched the moon its golden radiance 

shed 
Across a river's darkly rolling tide, 
When suddenly the bonds of earth seemed 

loosed ; 
I felt myself divided — soul from sense ; 
The baser part in swoon seemed laid behind — 
I almost feared to look and see it there. 
The soul in sudden purity went out, — 
An exile seeking home. From earth it passed. 
Toward some far other clime of fairer skies ; 
But as an exile feeble, old, and worn 
With long vicissitude, who staggers on 
Until he sees the land of long desire. 
And stretches trembling hands to touch its 

earth, 
May fall at last before the boundary — 
My soul approached what seemed a dreamed-of 

home, 



6o THE COURSE 

And yearned to rest within its tranquil vales ; 

But found it walled with beetling cliffs around, 

With cliffs impassable and barriers strong, 

That baffle one weighed down with aught of 

earth, 

And yield to him alone an entrance who, 

Life's latest bonds unloosed, is simply soul. 

In vain it strove to reach the silent land ; 

The clinging earthly fetters held it back ; 

Past earth, and entering not to heaven, it sank 

O'ercome. Then slowly usual life returned ; 

The differing parts that make the normal self 

Were interfused once more, and naught was 
left 

Of this experience but memory, 

And sheer exhaustion — body, soul, and mind. 

And this confirmed the truth that Shelley 

taught; — 
There is a soul in each that blindly gropes 



THE COURSE 6i 

Through darkness here awhile, in bonds con- 
fined; 
But yet a soul (a something far beyond 
The sense ; we call it " soul," or what v/e will), 
Transcendent, immanent, immortal. Past 
All pain and change and death it Hves secure ; 
Yet man can scarcely pierce with mortal sight 
The thick, enfolding clouds that wrap it round. 
We only see it gain with sudden gleam 
A moment's vantage o'er surrounding dark. 
But trust its light, inconstant now, is charged 
With prophecy of constant light to come. 

At length, from hiding dust of forms and 
creeds. 

Secure from them who bear yet soil his name, 

I saw emerge the pale, brave Christ, thorn- 
crowned. 

With pleading eyes, and heart that deeply 
yearned 



62 THE COURSE 

To lighten life with hope and tender love. 
Through Him, supplanting scorn, sweet pity 

came, 
Her gentle eyes suffused with ready tears, 
Her hands divinely stretched toward human 

pain. 
With love like dawn, that grows from one faint 

spot 
Of grey, and reaches out through flushing 

clouds, 
Until the whole drear world awakes to light. 

I strove to bring some joy to careworn men, 
And turn their haunted eyes toward restful 
Truth. 



Throughout emotion's realm, in former words, 
I traced the progress of the circling soul, 
In long circumference from faith to faith; 



THE COURSE 63 

But here with intellect — not heart — I speak 
The complement, whose growth accomplished, 

makes 
The full-orbed sphere of Thought and Feeling 

— both 
Secure in trust, that past obscuring mists 
The Soul's unchanging mountains rise serene. 



64 EPILOGUE 



EPILOGUE 

Though human hearts with grief and anguish 
Must still be darkened day by day^ 
Though youth must pass and beauty languish ^ 
Though joy must yield to sorrow's sway. 

Though hope grows dim and faith uncertain^ 
Though reaching thought forever fails 
To see^ beyond death's dusky curtain^ 
The mystery no search unveils^ 

Shall I not heed what gleams of Beauty 
Through Man and Nature surely shine f 
Shall I neglect the certain duty 
Of bringing joy to them that pine ? 



EPILOGUE 65 

Our life is like a shadowed valley ^ — 
The somber clouds above it fold ; 
But here and there the su7tbeams rally ; 
They totcch it here and there with gold. 

In hearts by laughing joy neglectedy 
In hearts by clinging grief oppressed^ 
In nook and corner least expected 
There Beauty waitSy an alkahest 

Dissolving life from combination 
Of mattery spirit y soul and sense y 
That soul appears in sublimation, 
Above its alloy dark and dense. 

So let me livcy all Beauty seeing. 
To lightest life where'er I can. 
And mark the souts immortal being 
Impearled within the mortal man. 



TO ' 67 



TO 

As bards of eld to cherished maids did bring 
Those amaranths of poesy and prayer, 
Whose music-woven coronals they wear, 
Forevermore engarlanded with Spring; 
So I, with later songs, for you shall wring 
From dying years immortal youth, and dare 
The slow, defeating ages to impair 
Your loveliness. Full-voiced of you I sing, 
And singing, lead you to that storied land 
Of meadows starred with fadeless passion- 
flowers. 
Where Beatrice, Emilia, Stella stand 
With girlhood in their eyes; while hand in 

hand, 
Iseult and Deidre roam through blissful bowers. 
Absorbed in dreams of Love's remembered 
hours. 



68 TO PHYLLIS 



TO PHYLLIS 

When thou dost leave thy wattled cote, 
E'en silly sheep are sore bested ; 
Then how could I play reed or oat 
Amid the fields whence thou art fled? — 

thou, my joy's sole livelihed ! 

1 could not heed the throstle's song. 
Nor mark the garish woods bedight 

With cardinal flowers. The groves among, 
O Phyllis ! think what woful wight 
Were Corydon, in hapless plight. 

Along the river's flowery strand 
Pale purple orchises, unseen, 
Amid the meadows lush would stand, 
While I, distraught, with teen and threne 
ewailed the Shepherd's vanished Queen. 



TO PHYLLIS 69 

The pastoral life would lose its charm, 
Its fabled force the country air; 
E'en Cynthia's beams could bring no balm 
To Corydon, wert thou not there, 
Phyllis, the country life to share. 



70 THE HILL OF PINES 



THE HILL OF PINES 

Stretched out beneath a mountain pine, 
I watch the mottled woods below ; 

The distant hills their clear-cut line 
Through soft October sunlight show. 

A busy sparrow hurries by, 

And now a hawk above me veers — 
Grey wings against an azure sky ; — 

A droning bee about me steers. 

This nodding little bluebell seems 
A vagrant bit of Heaven furled ; 

The nestling lake like diamond gleams. 
Its sapphire calm in ripples curled. 



THE HILL OF PINES 71 

I see the light on hill and plain, 

I see the sky's resplendent blue, 
But all my thought turns back again 

To other days fulfilled with you. 

You shared my love of flower and field ; 

Your comradeship to Nature brought 
A deeper joy than she can yield 

To me bereft of answering thought. 

About the hills a memory clings, 

It haunts the forest's rustling ways; — 

The doubled pleasure sharing brings 
I miss these clear October days. 



72 DIRGE FOR LOVE 



DIRGE FOR LOVE 

No more the moonless nights enchant 
Our hearts, till life with beauty thrills ; 
No more our souls, awakened, pant 
To break earth's bonds recalcitrant; 
No more for us the dawn fulfils 
Night's hope above the dreaming hills. 

No more ! No more ! for love is dead, — 
Young love, the child, to Heaven returned. 
Young love that made the dawns so red, 
And through imperfect Nature shed 
Such light, untainted beauty burned 
Before our souls that upward yearned. 

No more I sing the Spirit's song, — 
By love uplifted, sphere on sphere ; 



DIRGE FOR LOVE 73 

With blatant voice of human wrong 
I sing; yet still I dumbly long 
To breathe dawn-music, trilling clear 
Through love's intensive atmosphere. 

In night I see but night alone ; 

In dawn unrest that leads to day ; 

At noon I hear the bitter moan 

Of life, whose myriad tongues intone 

A litany to laws that they, 

With love's lamented dreams, obey. 

Young love is dead. The lonely hours 
Bring each its dread increase of doom ; 
About love's grave thick darkness lours ; 
And there life's penitential flowers 
Death-sweet, revive in endless bloom, 
For life's horizon is love's tomb. 



74 LONELINESS 



LONELINESS 

Let me come back a little while, 

In friendship's name, 
To touch your hand, to see you smile, 

As when I came 
Each day, and found your welcome still the same, 
Through younger, happier years, in friendship's 
name. 

I do not ask for lavish June, 

With Spring full-grown, 
Nor yet for hopeful May ; my boon 

Is this alone : 
To find one breath of Spring through Winter 

blown ! 
Shall not love's death for all love's faults atone? 



LONELINESS 75 

You cannot all forget how love, 

With wondering eyes 
But newly opened, looked above, 

Saw sudden skies, 
And gazed a moment, awed with vague surprise. 
Then reached a tiny hand for paradise. 

Can you forget how love, the child, 

With stammering speech, 
So many laughing hours beguiled 

In strife to teach 
His unused tongue those perfect words that reach 
The sense, but faltered timidly on each? 

Alas, I cannot all forget 

How love that grew 
More wonderful each day,'*ere yet 

His childhood knew 
Its own omnipotence, swift lightning slew, 
And left this void immensity; can you? 



76 LONELINESS 

I ask not much ; — but leave to sit 

With you again, 
Beside a fire your hands have lit, 

And hear the rain 
Outside, or watch with you how hill and plain 
In morning brighten. Must I ask in vain? 

Let me come back a little while, 

In friendship's name, " 
To touch your hand, to see you smile, 

As when I came 
With love that smouldered toward a birth of 

flame, 
Through younger, happier years, in friendship's 
name. 



LOVE'S HOMING 77 



LOVE'S HOMING 

As a bird returns to its nest 

I come to thee ; 
From the mocking world's unrest 

Thou savest me : 

All else is dark, a night 

Of storm and strife ; 
I come to thee for light, 

For love, for life. 



78 THE TOPIARIST 



THE TOPIARIST 

As tender trees are bent until they grow 
In strange unnatural shapes, so we who prate 

Of freedom, all our thwarted lives must show 
The stringent bending of our gardener — Fate. 



LOVE'S IMPOTENCE 79 



LOVE'S IMPOTENCE 

To watch a woman's face grow old 

From helpless day to day; 
To see increasing anguish mould 

Its hardening lines ; to pray 
In blind attempt to bend unbending steel, 
Is bitterness that death alone can heal. 

Yet love that sees each deepening line 

Resistless griefs engrave ; 
Yet love that finds no anodyne, 

No hope, no means to save, — 
A wave that breaks ^on Fate's unheeding 

shore, — 
For very impotence but loves the more. 



So LIFE 



LIFE 

In youth I saw her beauty shine 

Undimmed by clouds of gathering gloom ; 
I saw her rise serene, divine 

Above man's woe, defying doom. 

Then whirling tempests gathered fast ; 

I felt the storm-wind's rending breath ; 
A lightning flash — I saw aghast 

That Life was but a form of Death : 

Life but a form of Death, where change 
Is lord ; where Youth and Beauty wail 

And fade away, transformed to strange 
Disfigured shapes ; and burning pale 



LIFE 8i 

Upon the front of Life, I saw 

The brand of pain. Then old and sear 
She passed, obeying Nature's law, 

And in her stead stood Death, austere. 



82 THE BETTER PART 



THE BETTER PART 

If faith be possible, to rest in faith, 
Child-hearted, safe, — with shelt'ring gentle arms 
Beneath, above; no wraith 
Of doubt, no wild alarms 
To fright the soul that dreams toward endless 

bliss, — is best; 
And some in shelt'ring arms of faith securely 
rest. 

If doubt be strong, then live in honest doubt; 

Not seeking others' lucid faith to change, 
But bravely working out 
Within their ample range, 

The chances manifold of this most certain hfe, 

With opportunities for action, courage rife. 



THE BETTER PART 83 

To stand in manly tenderness is good, — 
With ready pity touching many lives, — 

And save for solitude 

The idle grief that rives 
The heart. Can life express itself in better way 
Than offVing unexpected kindness day by day? 

What need of searching how or whence or why? 
We have this life to make of what we will ; 
And yet we weakly cry, 
** Behold, Fate thwarts us still ! " 
We can but ponder thwarting Fate, yet are we 

free 
Within our mortal limits noble, base to be. 



84 THE STRANGER 



THE STRANGER 

A LONELY stranger wandering back, 
He seeks a scene of long ago ; 

His feet the well-remembered track 
Retrace with heavy steps and slow. 

He finds the nestling garden spot 
That love made sacred long ago ; 

The garden paths have altered not, 
Unchanged the stately cedars grow. 

The same encircling hills look down 
Through moonlit haze as long ago ; 

And still their shadowy masses crown 
The garden view, in graceful bow. 



THE STRANGER 85 

A few late sprays of heliotrope, — 
So fair it flowered ! O, long ago ! — 

And down the gentle southern slope 
The last October roses blow. 

Some dusky asters dark with night ; 

(How dark is grief for long ago !) 
The yellow-centred cosmos, white, 

Before him glimmers, row on row. 

The autumn moon is watching, calm. 
As oft it watched so long ago ; 

But her who gave the night its charm 
No more the moonlit alleys know. 

In other days he lighfly came, 

(How different now from long ago ! ) 

To touch her hand ; to breathe her name, 
(The name he gave her) breathing low. 



S6 THE STRANGER 

He lingers near an ancient dial 

That marked love's hours of long ago ; 

So swift their stream ! — a little while — 
The sluggish hours but scarcely flow. 

He dreams a moment love unchanged 
Awaits him there as long ago ; 

But from the paths where lovers ranged 
He turns alone. Ah, bitter woe ! 



THE LAST SYMPHONY 87 



THE LAST SYMPHONY 

A Monologue 

The fire is sinking, Alice, like my life ; 
A little moving of the wood will make 
The one flame up again ; but I, — no more. 
There was a time when you could make me 

glow 
With life and love and inspiration ; now 
I wait for death ; yes, glad to find him near. 
I only want to rest a little while 
With you, and talk. How strange ! — we two 

again 
Sit hand in hand, and all the vacant years 
Of utter loneliness seem scarcely real. 
Just then a wandering lock of hair that touched 
My cheek, brought back to me a simple song 
I sang you long ago, of how that touch 



88 THE LAST SYMPHONY 

Thrilled through me like a sudden glimpse of 

God. 
Do you remember, Alice ? You were pleased, 
And said your poet would win fame and friends. 
They came through music; do you think they 

count? 

My life is almost ended now ; I seem 

Above it all, and, looking down, I see 

The distant dawn of youth, whose light was 

you; 
And then I see the clouds that filled my sky, 
The one mistake that made my day so dark ; 
But now at sunset, just before the night, 
The clouds have broken, Alice, here with you. 

Your hand is cool upon my brow ; yes, 

leave 
It there. The fever sinks, or changes back 
Again to that old fever of the Spring ; — 

tOFC 



THE LAST SYMPHONY 89 

And yet I have not thanked you that you 

came, 
Nor him who did not grudge this happiness 
To me who missed you all the lonely years. 

Alice, my eyes are growing very dim ; 
Perhaps my mind is wand'ring idly; yet 
I would retrace with you my path of life, 
Whose farthest stretch is now so close at hand. 
Do you remember when our hves were young 
What perfect comradeship of thought was ours? 
How first the impulse stirred me to express. 
By means of art, the joy we had in life. 
And voice myself in music? Sometimes then 
We wondered whence this impulse came, so 

strong 
And so mysterious : I never knew. 
Then many forms I tried, and failed in each, 
From song to symphony ; but still we loved 
Those crude attempts of thought, but inchoate, 



^o THE LAST SYMPHONY 

To reach a formed expression. You would 

give 
Me courage to attempt again, and I 
Would come to you for rest and cheer in oft 
Repeated failure. Once, do you forget? 
You said I 'd robbed you when I burned them 

all. 
And then came love, and gave me of his strength 
To sing more worthily of life, and you. 
(Forgive me, Alice, that I bring your tears. 
You know I too have wept, alone — so long.) 

Then soon a subtile something came be- 
tween ; — 
Nay, do not speak, I understand it now ; — 
You could not quite accept the artist soul, — 
Its twilight strange of sun and shadow blent; 
And then he found you. Oh, I know he gave 
You many things you would have lacked with 
me; 



THE LAST SYMPHONY 91 

But did he understand your soul, your sweet 

Imperial tenderness, your girlish dreams 

I loved so well ? Alas, I saw it all ; 

I watched you ever, though you knew it not. 

I saw your eyes grow dim, the wrinkles 

come, — 
As, God be thanked, I shall not see again, — 
And once, across a crowded concert room, 
I met your look ; I saw the tears ; I knew 
My music reached you, — led you gently back 
To live again the days I dream of still. 
I knew you would remember. Sometimes, then, 
I thought you missed me — felt I wanted you — 
And that was why we did not dare to meet. 
And once — through windows open when I 

passed — 
I heard your voice that sang my own old 

song — 
Your voice that sang, then broke with sudden 

tears ; 



92 THE LAST SYMPHONY 

And coming back, I tried my early art, — 

To leave my soul expressed in words, not tones, 

For you alone to see when I was gone. 

The words are here, kept safe, with music too : 

How long I lack your love, 
With unfulfilled desire, — 

How long, how long ! 
My thoughts about you move 
Like baffled waves of fire, 
With unfulfilled desire, — 

How long, how long ! 

How long I yearn to fold 
Your loneliness in mine, — 

How long, how long ! 
While life unlived grows old. 
For love's fulfilment pine. 
Your loneliness and mine, — 

How long, how long ! 



THE LAST SYMPHONY 93 

Will you not sing it sometimes all alone, 
In memory of him who wrote, and loved? 

But now my twilight comes and you are here, 
As I have dreamed so many times you were ; — 
So close that there again I feel your hair. 
The one last flower of all my cherished art 
I long to give you, Alice, hand to hand. 
It grew with tender care, through thoughtful 

years. 
To hold my human longing, lack, and love — 
A yearning deeper than Tschaikowsky cried 
Or Chopin sang. In this I give you all ; — 
Our gently breathing dawn, our eager youth 
Of love and light, and then the stooping clouds, 
The loneliness and yearning unfulfilled. 
With just this glimpse of sunset ere the night. 

So take my off'ring ; here, by music saved. 
Our broken lives are bound at last in one ; 



94 THE LAST SYMPHONY 

And some in after time will understand — 
Some few, who feel what music strives to say ; 
So down the distant years we two shall go 
As oft of old, together, hand in hand. 

The fire is almost out, and you are tired. 
I am quite happy, Alice ; can you not 
Be happy too? You need not pity me ; 
I had you always as a young ideal, 
Unaging, undistraught with life ; the dawn 
About you still. You must not grieve too 

much. 
Live bravely, Alice. 

God I I loved her so ! 



SONGS FROM THE SILENT 
LAND 

By LOUIS V. LEDOUX 
8vo. Boards. With Frontispiece. 

The Outlook 

There is not so much real poetry written in this country 
nor so many true lovers of the art that a modest volume 
of verse like this can be passed by too lightly. The 
very refined and charming physical appearance of the 
book is indicative ot the imagination and love of beauty 
wrhich a reading of the verses discloses. Mr. Ledoux's 
poems strike a pure and high note. 

New York Evening Sun 

Louis Vernon Ledoux, author of " Songs from the 
Silent Land," has produced a first book which contains 
more than promise. ... It is only necessary to look 
over the poems to realize that they were written because 
there was a distinct impulse. They sound, therefore, the 
note of sincerity, whether the writer is dealing with the 
mystery of nature, the mystery^ of love, or the mystery 
of the world. 

The Globe 

There is strength and a poetic appeal in all this writer's 
work. 



OeC 21 I90tt 




011 558 492 3 



